What technique do you use to persist state?
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No, not a programming question, and no, not a "recover from a Friday drinking binge" question. Just curious, what different techniques people use (specifically for WinForm apps). Do you roll your own persistence class? If you're a .NET developer, do you use ApplicationSettingsBase[^] ? I'm also curious, if you develop client/server apps, if you store your app's state information locally or in a database so that your user can use any client machine and the UI is configured to their preferences ? And yes, I'm talking about UI things, such as last window size and location, but also more interesting things such as what columns the user selected to be visible on a grid, what display order, what sort order, etc. Same with, say, a tree control - what nodes were expanded and what nodes weren't? Plus things like "exit without asking" info, and so forth. Heck, do you even save the user's preferences / state of the UI? Marc
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My BlogMy application is a bit different. We run a printing press and related equipment. In that case, there aren't any 'user-specific' data to be persisted. At one time we would have used
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINEin the registry and called it a day, or stored a file with our application. Under Win7, none of that works. Our current solution is a group of XML files stored in the folder returned bySHGetKnownFolderPath(FOLDERID_ProgramData)[^]. I keep waiting for some moron to suggest we store settings data in the 'cloud' even though our machines never have an Internet connection...Software Zen:
delete this; -
No, not a programming question, and no, not a "recover from a Friday drinking binge" question. Just curious, what different techniques people use (specifically for WinForm apps). Do you roll your own persistence class? If you're a .NET developer, do you use ApplicationSettingsBase[^] ? I'm also curious, if you develop client/server apps, if you store your app's state information locally or in a database so that your user can use any client machine and the UI is configured to their preferences ? And yes, I'm talking about UI things, such as last window size and location, but also more interesting things such as what columns the user selected to be visible on a grid, what display order, what sort order, etc. Same with, say, a tree control - what nodes were expanded and what nodes weren't? Plus things like "exit without asking" info, and so forth. Heck, do you even save the user's preferences / state of the UI? Marc
Latest Article: C# and Ruby Classes: A Deep Dive
My BlogI the app I'm working on at the moment there s some I the db, som in the app config and soe in a text file cleverly renamed as a dell so the user doesn't try to edit it!!!
MVVM# - See how I did MVVM my way ___________________________________________ Man, you're a god. - walterhevedeich 26/05/2011 .\\axxx (That's an 'M')
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No, not a programming question, and no, not a "recover from a Friday drinking binge" question. Just curious, what different techniques people use (specifically for WinForm apps). Do you roll your own persistence class? If you're a .NET developer, do you use ApplicationSettingsBase[^] ? I'm also curious, if you develop client/server apps, if you store your app's state information locally or in a database so that your user can use any client machine and the UI is configured to their preferences ? And yes, I'm talking about UI things, such as last window size and location, but also more interesting things such as what columns the user selected to be visible on a grid, what display order, what sort order, etc. Same with, say, a tree control - what nodes were expanded and what nodes weren't? Plus things like "exit without asking" info, and so forth. Heck, do you even save the user's preferences / state of the UI? Marc
Latest Article: C# and Ruby Classes: A Deep Dive
My BlogXML file, even wrote an article about it way back. I rarely needed the persistence and now I use Silverlight and they don't get a choice.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
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I like to randomise it on every load to keep people on their toes. Seriously though, where I need to I roll my own - XML file normally to save the data, then my own class on top so that I can make sure it's strongly typed. Probably not the most efficient possible, but if I can add XML comments to my settings class the intellisense saves me a load of frustration trying to remember stuff.
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No, not a programming question, and no, not a "recover from a Friday drinking binge" question. Just curious, what different techniques people use (specifically for WinForm apps). Do you roll your own persistence class? If you're a .NET developer, do you use ApplicationSettingsBase[^] ? I'm also curious, if you develop client/server apps, if you store your app's state information locally or in a database so that your user can use any client machine and the UI is configured to their preferences ? And yes, I'm talking about UI things, such as last window size and location, but also more interesting things such as what columns the user selected to be visible on a grid, what display order, what sort order, etc. Same with, say, a tree control - what nodes were expanded and what nodes weren't? Plus things like "exit without asking" info, and so forth. Heck, do you even save the user's preferences / state of the UI? Marc
Latest Article: C# and Ruby Classes: A Deep Dive
My BlogMost applications use a data store for business data anyway. Why not use a partition of this data store for application state data?
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Most applications use a data store for business data anyway. Why not use a partition of this data store for application state data?
Brady Kelly wrote:
Why not use a partition of this data store for application state data?
Of course, but I was curious if people actually do that, or store config info elsewhere. Marc
Latest Article: C# and Ruby Classes: A Deep Dive
My Blog -
No, not a programming question, and no, not a "recover from a Friday drinking binge" question. Just curious, what different techniques people use (specifically for WinForm apps). Do you roll your own persistence class? If you're a .NET developer, do you use ApplicationSettingsBase[^] ? I'm also curious, if you develop client/server apps, if you store your app's state information locally or in a database so that your user can use any client machine and the UI is configured to their preferences ? And yes, I'm talking about UI things, such as last window size and location, but also more interesting things such as what columns the user selected to be visible on a grid, what display order, what sort order, etc. Same with, say, a tree control - what nodes were expanded and what nodes weren't? Plus things like "exit without asking" info, and so forth. Heck, do you even save the user's preferences / state of the UI? Marc
Latest Article: C# and Ruby Classes: A Deep Dive
My BlogI use ApplicationSettingsBase when the configuration only applies to one application and one user, otherwise I may use a custom XML configuration file somewhere in a public folder, or use a database.
CEO at: - Rafaga Systems - Para Facturas - Modern Components for the moment...
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No, not a programming question, and no, not a "recover from a Friday drinking binge" question. Just curious, what different techniques people use (specifically for WinForm apps). Do you roll your own persistence class? If you're a .NET developer, do you use ApplicationSettingsBase[^] ? I'm also curious, if you develop client/server apps, if you store your app's state information locally or in a database so that your user can use any client machine and the UI is configured to their preferences ? And yes, I'm talking about UI things, such as last window size and location, but also more interesting things such as what columns the user selected to be visible on a grid, what display order, what sort order, etc. Same with, say, a tree control - what nodes were expanded and what nodes weren't? Plus things like "exit without asking" info, and so forth. Heck, do you even save the user's preferences / state of the UI? Marc
Latest Article: C# and Ruby Classes: A Deep Dive
My BlogIt depends. In some applications it makes sense to use an XML file; in others, I use the registry; in others a database. In terms of what to save there: again, that depends on the applications. In some applications, form state is an integral part of how a document is displayed; in others it's unimportant. The same is true of behavioural settings. For Client/Server stuff, there usually ends up being a mix of techniques: things you want to persist across multiple installations of a product (by user) get stored in the database; stuff which has more to do with how the application looks on the screen of a specific machine get stored in the registry. I think it's all about common sense -- ask yourself questions like, "How annoying would it be if [this setting] did[n't] persist across different installation instances?".
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Back when I was a teenager, I thought saving UI State was all the rage but I soon gave it up. The massive amount of code required to store and manage it and make it all perfect just wasn't worth it. Heck, even today, I have a problem when I load firefox at home. You see I have a laptop hooked up to another monitor. However, that monitor is also wired to another machine. When the other machine is on, Windows on the laptop works fine but when I open something that was previously opened on the second monitor guess where it opens? If Windows and Firefox can't manage to get UI saving settings right why even bother? Plus, if you make an infinitely configurable UI, power users will complain that they can't configure X and that is so obvious or worse an upgrade will wipe their settings and lose you a customer. So, long story short, only save the bare essentials that make the app usable. The rest, don't make configurable unless they ask.
Need custom software developed? I do custom programming based primarily on MS tools with an emphasis on C# development and consulting. "And they, since they Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs" -- Robert Frost "All users always want Excel" --Ennis Lynch
Hi, I have been a developer for many years now, and I support this message to the fullest. So should YOU! Seriously, settings are such a hassle. The 'Appconfig' likes to forget them. If you roll your own you have to be backward compatible. Even VS has a 'reset to defaults button' for the interface because it can get stuck in a bad layout you can not manually correct anymore. If you provide too many options your application becomes 'too difficult' Fortunately I was able to convince my coworkers of this. Our application remembers the sizes of the screens, when a screen is shown, it checks if the position is a valid desktop position (making multi-monitor compatible even if you remove a monitor). That's it. Whenever a customer ask for more setting, we say: Tell us exactly what settings you want. For which screens? How should remember them? Is it ok to break it with future changes. But before you do this, remember that each setting cost 1 hour to develop, 1 hour to deploy, 1 hour to test. Plus the square root (in hours) of all settings combined for additional testing where settings may interfere with each other. Then multiply that with out hourly wage and ask yourself this question: "Do you really want that setting?" Maybe, one day, one of our clients will say yes... Then we'll slap them with a 200% 'we really do not want to do this' bonus fee.
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My application is a bit different. We run a printing press and related equipment. In that case, there aren't any 'user-specific' data to be persisted. At one time we would have used
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINEin the registry and called it a day, or stored a file with our application. Under Win7, none of that works. Our current solution is a group of XML files stored in the folder returned bySHGetKnownFolderPath(FOLDERID_ProgramData)[^]. I keep waiting for some moron to suggest we store settings data in the 'cloud' even though our machines never have an Internet connection...Software Zen:
delete this;Store it in the cloud! The cloud is magic. It does everything but the dishes! X|
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No, not a programming question, and no, not a "recover from a Friday drinking binge" question. Just curious, what different techniques people use (specifically for WinForm apps). Do you roll your own persistence class? If you're a .NET developer, do you use ApplicationSettingsBase[^] ? I'm also curious, if you develop client/server apps, if you store your app's state information locally or in a database so that your user can use any client machine and the UI is configured to their preferences ? And yes, I'm talking about UI things, such as last window size and location, but also more interesting things such as what columns the user selected to be visible on a grid, what display order, what sort order, etc. Same with, say, a tree control - what nodes were expanded and what nodes weren't? Plus things like "exit without asking" info, and so forth. Heck, do you even save the user's preferences / state of the UI? Marc
Latest Article: C# and Ruby Classes: A Deep Dive
My BlogSQL Server